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Charles Curtis
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Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was a United States Representative, a longtime Senator from Kansas elected to Senate Majority Leader, as well as the 31st Vice President of the United States. He was the first person with acknowledged non-European ancestry to reach either of the two highest offices in the United States government's executive branch (and the last until Barack Obama's election as president in 2008). Most of Curtis' maternal ancestry was Native American, and he spent years of childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation.
An attorney, Curtis entered political life early, winning multiple terms starting in 1892 as a Republican to the US House of Representatives from his district in Topeka, Kansas.
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Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was a United States Representative, a longtime Senator from Kansas elected to Senate Majority Leader, as well as the 31st Vice President of the United States. He was the first person with acknowledged non-European ancestry to reach either of the two highest offices in the United States government's executive branch (and the last until Barack Obama's election as president in 2008). Most of Curtis' maternal ancestry was Native American, and he spent years of childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation.
An attorney, Curtis entered political life early, winning multiple terms starting in 1892 as a Republican to the US House of Representatives from his district in Topeka, Kansas. He was elected to the Senate first by the Kansas legislature, and then by popular vote in 1920 and thereafter. Curtis served in the Senate from 1915 to 1929. His long popularity and connections in Kansas and national politics helped make Curtis a strong leader in the Senate; he marshaled support to be elected as Senate Minority Whip from 1915–1924 and then as Senate Majority Leader from 1925–1929. In these positions he was instrumental in managing legislation and accomplishing Republican national goals.
After the landslide victory of the Republican ticket in 1928, Curtis resigned from the Senate to serve as Vice-president to Herbert Hoover as President.
Biography
Early life and education
Born in January 1860 in the Kansas Territory prior to the arrival of statehood in January 1861, Vice President Curtis is notable as an Executive Branch officer not born in a state admitted to the union. Curtis was nearly half American Indian in ancestry. His mother, Ellen Pappan, was one-fourth Kaw, one-fourth Osage, one-fourth Pottawatomie and one-fourth French. His father Orren Curtis was of English and northern European ancestry.
Curtis was born in Topeka, Kansas Territory, where his first languages were French and Kansa taught by his mother. As a boy living with his mother and her family on the reservation, he started racing horses. Curtis often won prairie horse races as a jockey.
Curtis' mother died in 1863 when the boy was three. His father remarried and divorced, then married again. The elder Curtis was in military prison because of an incident during the American Civil War. Charles was taken care of by his paternal Curtis grandparents during several of these unstable years, especially during high school. They helped him gain inheritance of his mother's land in North Topeka, over his father's attempt.
Curtis was strongly influenced by both sets of grandparents. After living with his maternal grandparents on the reservation, Curtis returned to Topeka to live with his paternal grandparents and to attend Topeka High School. Both his grandmothers encouraged him to get an education.
Afterward he studied law and worked part-time. Curtis was admitted to the bar in 1881. He commenced practice in Topeka and served as prosecuting attorney of Shawnee County, Kansas from 1885 to 1889.
Marriage and family
Curtis married Anna Baird, with whom he had three children: Permelia Jeannette, Henry "aka Harry" King and Leona Virginia Curtis. They also made a home for his half-sister Dolly Curtis after her mother died.
Political career
The zest Curtis showed in horse racing was expressed in his political career. First elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives of the 53rd Congress, Curtis was re-elected for the following six terms. He made the effort to learn about his many constituents and treated them as personal friends.
While serving as a Congressman, Curtis originated and helped pass the Curtis Act of 1898, with provisions that included bringing the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma under land allotment and restructuring provisions. It limited their tribal courts and government. By his own experience, Curtis believed that the Indians could benefit by getting educated, assimilating and joining the main society. The government tried to encourage Indians to accept individual citizenship and lands, and to take up European-American culture. In application of these goals, some administrators went too far in terms of threats and breaking down families. (see Indian Boarding Schools)
With his ties in Congress, Curtis was always abreast of changes in Indian law and programs. He re-enrolled with the Kaw tribe, which had been removed to Oklahoma when he was in his teens. In 1902 the Kaw Allotment Act disbanded the Kaw nation as a legal entity. This was the tribe of Curtis and his mother. The act transferred 160 acres (0.6 km²) of former tribal land to the federal government. Other land held in common was allocated to individual tribal members. Under the terms of the act, Curtis (and his three children) as enrolled tribal members received about 1,625 acres (6.6 km²) of Kaw land in Oklahoma.
Curtis served in the House from March 4, 1893 until January 28, 1907, when he resigned for the unexpired term of a Senate seat. He had been chosen by the Kansas Legislature to fill the short unexpired term of Senator Joseph R. Burton in the United States Senate. On that same day of January 28, Curtis was also tapped by Kansas' state lawmakers for the full Senatorial term commencing March 4 of that year and ending March 4, 1913. In 1912 he was unsuccessful in trying to be redesignated by the legislature as senator, but his absence from the Senate was brief.
In 1914 the Kansas Legislature selected Curtis for the six-year Senate term commencing March 4, 1915. After passage of the 17th Amendment which provided for direct election of senators, in 1920 Curtis was elected as senator by popular vote of Kansas voters. He was elected to the Senate again in 1926, thus serving without interruption from March 4, 1915 until his resignation on March 3, 1929, after being elected as Vice-President.
During his tenure in the Senate, Curtis was President pro tempore of the Senate as well as Chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Interior, of the Committee on Indian Depredations, and of the Committee on Coast Defenses, as well as of the Republican Conference.
He was also United States Senate Republican Whip from 1915 to 1924 and Majority Leader from 1925 to 1929. He was responsible for much collaboration to move legislation forward. Idaho Senator William Borah acclaimed Curtis "a great reconciler, a walking political encyclopedia and one of the best political poker players in America."
It was in 1923 during his Senate years that Curtis, together with fellow Kansan, Representative Daniel Read Anthony, Jr. proposed the first version of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution to each of their Houses. The amendment did not go forward.
Curtis resigned from the Senate on March 3, 1929 to assume the office of Vice President, following the landslide 58% – 41% victory achieved by Presidential candidate Herbert Hoover in 1928. The pair were inaugurated on March 4, 1929. Curtis endorsed the five-day work week, with no reduction in wages, as a work-sharing solution to unemployment soon after the Great Depression began. (See John Ryan's book Questions of the Day.)
The overwhelming problems of the Great Depression led to Republican defeat in the next election. Following the 57% – 40% landslide defeat of the Hoover-Curtis ticket in 1932, Curtis' term as Vice President ended on March 4, 1933.
After politics
After so many years of service in Congress, Curtis decided to stay in Washington, D.C. to resume his legal career. There he had a wide network of professional contacts.
He died there a few years later in 1936 from a heart attack. By his wishes, his body was returned to his beloved Kansas and buried at the Topeka Cemetery.
Curtis was the last U.S. Vice President or President to wear a beard or mustache — in his case, a mustache — while in office.
Portrayal in film
- In Whispers like Thunder, a projected film about the three Conley sisters' battle to preserve the Wyandot National Burying Ground in Kansas City, Kansas, the British actor Sir Ben Kingsley, whose company is producing the film, will portray Senator Curtis. He introduced the bill which kept the land from being sold and converted it to a national monument. The film is being produced by Kingsley's SBK Pictures in association with Luis Moro Productions. It was written by Trip Brooks and Luis Moro.
- In Jim Thorpe -- All-American (1951), a biopic about Native-American Olympian Jim Thorpe, newsreel footage from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics includes Charles Curtis. In the film, Jim Thorpe is on the skids after losing his Olympic medals for a violation of the Olympic amateur code. A friend takes him to the Olympic stadium and bucks him up by pointing out "Charles Curtis -- Vice President of the US -- American Indian."
See also
External links
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